Now the man shall go out toward himself and toward all men of good-will, and shall taste and behold how that they are tied and bound together in love. The third and fourth directions of outflow are folded together here — toward himself, toward all the good. The contemplative's seeing of the communion of saints is not a doctrinal abstraction but a felt perception: he tastes that all the loving are bound to each other in one bond. The Mahayana doctrine of interdependent arising (pratityasamutpada) reaches a structurally similar perception — every node in the field of being is bound to every other — though the metaphysics differ. The mystical tradition, East and West, ends in a sense of universal interconnection that is not just argued but seen.Communion of saints in Christian theology: Cyprian, On the Unity of the Church VI; on pratityasamutpada, Nagarjuna, Mulamadhyamakakarika XXIV.
He shall faithfully and discreetly teach and instruct, reprove and serve, all men; for he bears in him a love towards all. The teaching role of the contemplative is named — but with two qualifiers. Faithfully and discreetly. Ruusbroec is realistic about the dangers. The man who has tasted unity may be tempted to broadcast it, to gather disciples, to set up a circle. He has named this temptation harshly in the chapters on the false enlightened (chs. 73 ff.). The legitimate teacher works inside the constraints of the church, instructs with care for the listener's actual capacity, reproves without contempt, serves without self-display. The same combination — authority and discretion — is what the Sufi tradition demands of the murshid.On the Sufi murshid's required disposition see al-Sarraj, Kitab al-Lumaʿ on the manners of the master; cf. Gregory the Great, Pastoral Rule II on the qualifications of the spiritual director.
He shall turn wholly inwards upon himself with all the saints and with all the just, and possess in peace the unity of his spirit, and therewith the most high Unity of God. The closing motion of the chapter is the indrawing. The four outflows complete themselves in a return — the contemplative does not stop going out toward the world, but every outflow ends in being drawn back into the most high Unity. Ruusbroec's signature double rhythm. The Trinity itself works this way (eternally proceeding and returning), and the contemplative life is the soul's participation in that rhythm. Plotinus saw the same shape in the Neoplatonic procession-and-return.On Plotinian proodos kai epistrophe see Ennead V.1; on Ruusbroec's adaptation see Verdeyen, Ruusbroec and His Mysticism.